Columbus Gave Old World 1st Taste Of Tobacco

Reflections

Give Christopher Columbus the credit or the blame. Known as the Discoverer of the New World, he had to give place to others who preceded him to the North American continent.

However, he and his men can take sole credit for another discovery - tobacco, which they introduced to the Old World.

When, in 1492, the Santa Maria, flagship of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, first touched the little island that he named San Salvador, its sailors were astonished to see the native people smoking a rolled up, dry leaf.

This was the Europeans' first contact with tobacco, a plant that would become for centuries the basis of the economy in much of the New World.

To the native Americans, tobacco was a special gift of the Great Spirits whom they worshipped. Smoking the peace pipe was used on ceremonial occasions such as the making of treaties between tribes; it was considered an act of friendship with great meaning as the new settlers who participated in the ritual soon realized.

The native Americans also used tobacco in religious ceremonies. Virginia author Robert Beverley, writing in 1705 of Indian customs, stated that they offered sacrifice on almost every ``new occasion.'' When they returned from war or a successful hunt, they were in the habit of offering tobacco or some part of the spoils in thanks to the Great Spirit. ``They burn tobacco instead of incense, to the Sun, to bribe Him to send fair weather or a prosperous voyage,'' he wrote.

During the explorations of the islands that Columbus called the Indies, the visitors acquired the habit of smoking the rolled-up dry leaves and carried the custom back to Spain where smoking soon became fashionable. It spread to Portugal and then to France.

In fact, the name ``nicotiane'' (Nicot's plant) came from the name of the French ambassador to Lisbon, Jacques Nicot, who sent samples to the French queen as a therapeutic. In Paris it was soon in wide use. Extravagant claims were made for it as a cure-all; it was used in powder, poultices, salves and carthartics and was referred to as the ``fabulous weed.''

The habit of smoking spread to England and became popular during the reign of Elizabeth I. Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and other notables were fond of smoking a clay pipe, a custom borrowed directly from the Indians.

The familiar story that Raleigh's servant doused him with a bucket of water thinking he was on fire when he saw smoke issuing from his mouth is probably only a picturesque legend, but it confirms the fact that the Virginia colonists were already tobacco users when Jamestown was settled.

John Rolfe, best known for his marriage to Pocahontas, was really the father of tobacco culture in Virginia. Finding the native plant here strong and unpleasant, he procured seeds from the West Indies and grew a small crop of the sweet-scented variety. The success of this venture initiated a craze for growing the plant.

The cured leaves could be shipped to England successfully and sold at a profit. In a few years, it became the chief export.

In spite of tobacco's wide-spread use, it had many detractors in the mother country. Most prominent among them was the Scottish King James I, who had succeeded Elizabeth I to the throne.

He published a tract, ``Counterblaste to Tobacco,'' in which he characterized the use of tobacco in this fashion: it is a ``custome lothsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the braine, and dangerous to the lungs.''

Other sober elements in England who had hoped for a profitable trade in timber, ship's stores (tar, turpentine and pitch), pig iron and other commodities were unhappy with the developing tobacco trade, but high profits won out.

Whether Columbus smoked the weed himself is not known. What is known is that of all the gifts of the New World to the Old, tobacco became the most lucrative. Columbus failed to find the Spice Islands, but what he did find brought incredible wealth.

Ironically, James I gave an assessment of the fabulous weed that coincides almost exactly with that of former surgeon general C. Everett Koop some 400 years later.

Next month: The story of the Virginia colony's first century is largely the story of tobacco.

Louise Gray's column about history on the Middle Peninsula appears in Neightbors the first week of each month.